The Guards Must Be Crazy: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''"All this constant turning my back on the dark woods really makes me miss [[Fatal Family Photo|my wife and family]]."''

 

Being a guard for an [[Evil Overlord]] is a low-status, low-pay, high-risk job in an [[No OSHA Compliance|unsafe workplace]], with very little [[You Have Failed Me...|long term job security]], but hey, they normally have a brilliant [[Retirony|pension plan]]. So it's hardly surprising that most applicants aren't exactly [[Clueless Deputy|the sharpest knives in the drawer]] (not that their bosses tolerate [[Surrounded by Idiots|incompetent underlings]]), and could be fooled by tricks that wouldn't bother an average six-year-old.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', the nameless ninja mooks are usually dumb brutes, masked and, in a world filled with powerful techniques, normally attack with kunai rather than, you know, throw a massive fireball or do any other flashy attack to blow the opponent to dust! Worse is that even the [[Red Shirt]]s can be defeated by a single attacker and barely fight using any jutsu. It seems like that only the main characters, villain or hero, are trained in anything other than holding a kunai against the opponent who can pick one technique of his ARSENAL and shoot fire hotter than the sun, create tornadoes, open the ground beneath them and bury them, or throw rocks the size of buildings at them...etc. Yeah. That's the guy you want to try and take prisoner with your dinky little knife.

* In ''[[Windaria]]'' the key to Lunara's floodgates are guarded by an old man that sleeps most of the day in a guardhouse without a door. At the start of the film, a spy walks in there, takes the keys, and no one realizes anything until he opens the flood gates. Considering this could have flooded the entire city it merges with [[Too Dumb to Live]].

 

== Comic Books ==

"And by that time, the orcs have apparently already returned to Mordor. I think we can safely assume that all the characters have gone insane." }}

 

* The ultimate and truly memorable subversion in ''[[Titan A.E.]]'': Preed, Stith, and Korso are trying to free Akima from a slave prison. They see a large, brutish guard around a corner, and Stith offers to take him out. Preed refuses, saying, "This requires cunning and deception." They then walk up to the guard, and Preed spins a tale that he and Stith are traders, and that Korso is his slave. After delivering his story, the guard says these exact things: "You're ''lying''. ''He's'' [Korso] not a slave and ''you're'' not traders. Look at the way he ''stands''. He doesn't ''carry'' himself like a slave. Probably ''ex-military''." (Korso is a former Earth [[Space Marine]].) "Akrennians [like Preed] always threaten before asking a favor, ''it's tradition''." (Which Preed apparently ''completely'' forgot.) "And ''your'' [Stith] robes are made out of ''bedspreads!''" Preed then asks if they have a Plan B. Stith promptly reverts to her Plan A by kicking the crap out of the guard.

{{quote|'''Preed:''' An intelligent guard! Didn't see that one coming.}}

** Not to mention that the same thief was able to walk up to the palace and meet the King and Queen face to face.

* The guards in ''[[The Incredibles]]'' fall prey to a few of these. They're decent enough at their jobs when they're in action, but it's the boring surveillance part of the day that always slips them up. At one point in the movie, they ''all'' leave their posts to check on a colleague who's just collapsed. Later, they don't notice Helen when she's right behind them. She even talks. Later still, nobody is paying attention to the security cameras and are all partying in the background. Only [[Punch Clock Villain|Mirage]] notices the escapees that don't even bother to avoid the security cameras. Most notably, though, is later in the same scene where it gets absurd enough that Bob [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] it. They enter a large room with no one in it and he absently wonders, "Where are all the guards?"

* Consistent in all the ''[[Austin Powers]]'' movies. One even manages to fall into the lava flow when he's outwitted by Felicity Shagwell's boobs.

* In ''[[Mom and Dad Save The World]]'', a guard, despite being from a planet of idiots, ''doesn't'' assume Dad is a guard just because he's wearing a uniform... however, she unquestioningly accepts the laughable answers he provides in response to her questioning and lets him go on his way.

** Of course, would ''you'' stick around once the dinosaur skeletons and such started moving?

* In ''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country]]'', the Enterprise manages to fly deep into Klingon territory to rescue Kirk and [[McCoy]] despite a listening post picking them up and demanding to know their identity and destination. They manage to fool the completely incompetent guards despite having to resort to using an English-Klingon dictionary to look up their answers and making several grammatical errors during the conversation.

 

== Literature ==

* The ''[[Discworld]]'' books have a lot of fun with this.

* In one of the ''[[Get Smart]]'' novels, one guard is particularly immune to this. Instead of entering the cell when Max sets fire to the bed as a diversion, the guard merely opens up on him with the fire hose.

** However, just a few pages later the rest of the guards in the prison are fooled by Max writing "out of order" with a piece of chalk on a death ray!

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* Most classes that would traditionally be used as guards in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' don't have Spot, Listen or Sense Motive as class skills. This essentially makes them partially blind, hearing impaired, and incredibly gullible.

** Depends on the DM. Most play the trope straight because guards tend not to be treated as more than minor enemies. Those skills are mainly intended to counteract Hide, Move Silently, and Bluff. In addition, those skills are not infallible unless the DM hands NPCs the [[Idiot Ball]]. For example, no matter what your Hide skill is, if you walk in front of a guard without some form of cover, he sees you, no matter what.

** In 3.5 Scouts used as guards can avert this trope hard. The class is much like Rogue in this regard (Spot, Listen and Sense Motive as class skills, 8 base skill points per level; Hide and Move Silently are class skills, so they can stand guard without being readily visible), but better in head-on melee if there is some room to move around as Skirmish ability still works when Sneak Attack doesn't, has better hit die, and more combat and mobility improvements, starting with initiative bonus at 2nd level.

* ''Time Lord'' RPG (based on ''[[Doctor Who]]'') main rules, "Curse of the Cyclops" adventure. If the entire [[PC]] party is captured and there is no one to rescue them, the guards will demonstrate their usual stupidity and allow the prisoners to fool them and escape.

** In the ''Journies'' supplement, a captured [[PC]] could use "The Daft Guard Effect" to distract any guards present so the prisoner(s) can escape.

 

* Played for laughs in [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Much Ado About Nothing]]''.

{{quote|'''Dogberry:''' You are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's name.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' made a commendable effort to give the players the impression that they were really storming an enemy stronghold in the Shattered Halls instance, with constant reinforcement coming to face you and guards lining up in formation. Sadly, they still included a room where a bunch of guards kept training rather than facing you, and another where they managed to sleep through the whole ruckus.

** And in another dungeon the boss greets you when you get close to him, but makes no attempt to stop you slaughtering his remaining guards, who all just stand there.

*** Because he doesn't want to get mauled by your dragon/wolf/devil dog/tame metal [[SCP Foundation|SCP-682]].

** Wes and Michael have brassier balls than the other protagonists by far as a result of the methods Cipher includes in its peon training. They are trained with good Pokemon regularly, a larger variety is made available, some are armed with Shadow Pokemon, they ignore the tripwire mentality, [[Memetic Mutation|Ceiling Peon is watching you infiltrate]], they disguise themselves as civvies on occasion, they come in groups... need I go on?

* The guards in the ''[[Tenchu]]'' series are not the brightest folk in medieval Japan. While they will look around for you for a while if they spot your shadow or see you moving just out of clear sight, the fact that a dead guard causes no more than a few minutes searching, and no call for backup, seems to indicate that broken necks and gaping sword wounds weren't considered too unusual in an average night's work.

** Although, to be fair, in the ''Tenchu'' universe, it's sort of implied that this happens ''all the time.''

** In ''[[Fable II]]'', should you accidentally or on purpose, murder ONE villager, the guards will then constantly say, "I won't let you murder anyone else!"

** Spire guards will too proceed to be dumb as wood, never mind the fact that this guy (or girl) {{spoiler|broke out of an unbreakable collar, probably killed about 50 of your mates with powerful spells, just hacked them to pieces or shot their [[Groin Attack|balls off]]}}. Charge to certain death! {{spoiler|Doubly so after the most powerful will user on the planet gets his powers back.}}

** The Dwarf Commoner origin of Dragon Age has a sequence where both you and your NPC ally are left in prison cells, with one guard to watch you. This guard can be easily baited to approach within arm's reach of the bars while the key to your cell is openly hanging on his belt. At this point you can a) pretend to be sick, which will cause him to (of course) enter the cell to check on you, b) pickpocket him for the key (if you have the right skill) or c) grab him by the collar and pull his face into the bars hard enough to crack his skull (if you have a high enough strength score). Apparently the idea of not having the guard carry the key openly on his belt, training him not to go too close to the bars, not caring if a prisoner already scheduled to be executed in the next couple of hours dies a little sooner, or just having ''two'' guards watch the high-value prisoners was entirely beyond the mental capacities of anyone in the Carta.

** ''[[Dragon Age II]]'''s Mark of the Assassin DLC includes a [[Stealth-Based Mission]] in which Hawke must sneak past the guards of the Orlesian Chateau Haine. Fortunately, the guards are easily convinced by whatever ridiculous story Hawke can come up with, are highly susceptible to distraction by thrown pebbles, apparently have very poor night vision, and are remarkably unconcerned about waking up on the floor in the middle of their patrol after being [[Tap on the Head|tapped on the back of the head]]: "Damned blackouts..."

* Subverted in the first ''[[Call of Duty]]'' game. In one of the missions of the British campaign, Cpt. Price and Sgt. Evans (the player) are given the task to sabotage the German battleship ''Tirpitz'' from inside, and in order to do that they've to kill two German seamen on shore and take their uniforms. Once they arrives to the ship, they were allowed onboard thanks to Cpt. Price's fluent German, but when they arrives to the armory, one of the guards stationed outside is suspicious of them (likely due to Cpt. Price's lack of German accent) and phone call the command about Captain Price's false ID-card to see if it's realible. Their covers soon about to be blow up, Cpt. Price shoots the guards, and cue to an firefight.

* In the first ''[[Commandos]]'' game some of the levels had prisons. If one of your men was spotted then he would be held at gunpoint, and as long as he didn't move or perform an offensive action then he would eventually be marched off to the jail where his buddies could later break him out (or, more likely, you could just [[Save Scumming|reload]]). However, in maps with no jail the lone guards would [[Artificial Stupidity|never, ever fire]] on one of your men as long as he remained perfectly still, and only the arrival of a patrol would cause them to shoot. If there were no patrols nearby then you have a man crawl to a chosen spot and then suddenly stand up, ensuring that a guard spotted him and stood there with his cone of vision fixated on the one spot. Any other guards that could see the commando or another alerted guard would join in, potentially causing a chain reaction where dozens of enemies would converge and look towards one point. If your squad's brave volunteer was carefully positioned then it was fairly trivial for another squad member to then methodically stab everyone whilst they were distracted. This troper called this the 'Sniper tactic', since the Sniper was the most [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|useless squad member]], making him an ideal candidate for the job.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Minions At Work]]'': [http://www.minionsatwork.com/2006/05/minions-4-watch-your-back.html Letting him keep something from his mother].

* The sleeping [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20080603.html peanut butter factory guard] and the slow and clumsy [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20090829.html guard-bot] in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''.

* Guards at the castle in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' show a [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081105 deplorable underreaction] when someone claiming he's that [[Overlord, Jr.|son and heir of their boss]] who [[One-Man Army|stopped a little armored army single-handedly]] on the whole city's eyes right before these guys' shift "asked ''nice''" to enter. That he leads a crowd, brandishes an unknown device and [[Cheshire Cat Grin|maniacally grins]] didn't spur their brains to work faster either. To be fair the guards weren't really listening. In fact, if you follow that elegant and finely-crafted link above, you'll notice that about one panel later he says, "[[Double Take|Wait, you're who?]]"

** [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120113 Later], Gilgamesh discovers that all but one of his father's guards consider the fact that he's wearing an [[Nice Hat|extremely impressive hat]] with his name written on it (''misspelled'') to constitute definitive proof of his identity. He promises the one who didn't a promotion.

* In ''[[Get Medieval]]'', Torquel Hane pulled free of his chains (by [[Badass|dislocating his thumbs]]); when a guard came to investigate his cry of pain, Torquel distracted him by pointing his obviously unchained hand and saying ''another'' prisoner had escaped. The guard [[Too Dumb to Live|turned to look]], and CLUNK!

* ''[[Vexxarr]]'' got [http://www.vexxarr.com/archive.php?seldate=080112 enforcement drones] on the ship of robot scavengers/pirates.

 

** During the [[Cold War]] a couple of East Germans made their own uniforms mimicking those of the East German Guards and simply saluted the guards on duty, then walked through the checkpoint to West Berlin.

* There is a [[Ninja]] technique, the name of which translates as "throwing the toothpick", to distract guards. To be fair, if it's done properly, the guards never see ''anything'', they just hear a sound.

* In 1982, [[wikipedia:Michael Fagan incident|an unhinged man climbed the wall of Buckingham palace.]] Someone saw him and reported it, but by the time guards came to look, he was gone and they decided he must have left already; they raised no alarm. When he went through a window, the security system alerted a policeman on duty, who assumed it was a malfunction and '''silenced the alarm twice in a row'''. Wandering through the halls, he passed a housekeeper, who '''greeted him'''. He eventually made it to the Queen's chamber, where she was sleeping unguarded, woke her up, and chatted to her as she tried to get help by two different methods (a button and the phone); nobody came for ten minutes. As Hollywood writer [[William Goldman]] said it, if you would put this in a movie, people probably would throw rotten eggs at the screen for breaking their [[Suspension of Disbelief]].

** [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|He also got cigarettes upon request.]]

** Even better, they only crime he was charged with was stealing a bottle of cheap wine, because, at the time, trespassing was a civil offense rather than a criminal one. The charge was dropped when he was committed to a mental hospital.

* Gilber Galvan escaped an American prison by waiting in a rec area until the guards left for coffee, then using a pool cue to open the drawer of their desk and fish out the keys. He later went on to be known as Canada's "Phantom Bandit".

* [[wikipedia:Mas Selamat bin Kastari|Mas Selamat bin Kastari]], one of the most influential terrorists in Southeast Asia escaped Singapore's most well-guarded prison by going to the toilet, changing quickly, and climbing out the window. When he was recaptured more than a year later, it was revealed that he climbed into the storm drains, went 20+ kilometers north in 3 days, created improvised flotation devices from trash, and swam across from Singapore to Malaysia and met up with other operatives. Apparently, it was so unexpected, that theories ranged from his escape a cover for the fact that he had died in detention, he used black magic to get out, or he was allowed to escape so that he could lead authorities to other terrorists.

* A notable aversion [http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Packers-linebacker-forgets-ID-can-t-get-into-Wh?urn=nfl-wp5018 when the Green Bay Packers went to the White House to be congratulated] on their [[Super Bowl]] Victory in 2011. Linebacker Desmond Bishop lost his photo ID on the plane and was thus denied entry to the White House. Before you say "But he was on national television in the Super Bowl! He was with his team! How could they deny him entry?!!?", remember how often in fiction the "lost my ID" ruse works - and it works in [[Real Life]] too, due to this trope - and obviously no place should have better security than than the headquarters. So good job, guards!

* In 1987 a 18-year-old West German aviator named Mathias Rust managed to fly straight through several supposedly impregnable layers of Soviet air-defense systems and land his Cessna [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TXIGfL2iFw near the center of Red Square]. What made this worse was that he was spotted on several occasions by air defense crews and interceptors, but most of them either assumed he was friendly, thought he had crashed shortly afterwords, or otherwise failed to gain permission to shoot him down. The event ended up irreparably damaging the credibility of the Soviet military and led to the firing of many senior officers.

** In one regard, he was either brilliant or very lucky: his aircraft was so small that radar registered him as a helicopter.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Insecurity System]]

[[Category:Older Than Print]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guards Must Be Crazy, The}}